Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a white supremacist, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and right-wing extremist organization in the United States that was first formed in 1865 in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Confederate States of America general Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the KKK as a group of pro-slavery advocates and Civil War veterans that terrorized recently-freed African-Americans and abolitionists. The KKK was involved with lynching black people and infiltrating political offices to exercise control over the government, and President Ulysses S. Grant - himself a veteran general of the Civil War - stamped out the KKK in the 1870s. It was revived in 1915 after the racist film The Birth of a Nation was released, and the group adopted the practice of burning crosses as a symbol of their extreme Protestant faith. The group stressed their opposition to the Catholic church, recent immigrants (including Jews), and adopted the standard white costume that was adorned with a conical hat. The KKK took part in cross burnings and parades, and the group would lose its popularity in 1944 during World War II, as it was compared to the Nazi Party of Germany. In 1946, the Klan would be revived, although it was divided into local chapters that campaigned against the Civil Rights movement and used violence and murder to suppress activists. In 2016, the KKK had 3,000-6,000 people in its ranks (far from the 6,000,000 members it had in 1924-25), swearing to uphold Christian morality, but every Christian denomination condemned the group.